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Friday, February 26, 2016

Snails in Space

Do you remember the old muppets sketch 'Pigs In Space'? It was one of my favourites when I was a kid - something about the muppets (ahem) hamming it up as soap quality actors.

Despite this, I was never much of a space race child. Spaceflight and lunar landings didn't get much airtime in my brain until I met my husband, Doug. For him, rockets and planets and missions to Mars still hold the same mystique they did in boyhood and the recent resurgence of funding? interest? hype? regarding space travel is something he follows closely.

This sets the stage for the conversation we had in bed a few nights ago when Doug turned to me and said, "Would you like to send your artwork to space?"

"Pardon?" I asked, putting down a thick tome of Faulkner I've been working on for a month now.

"NASA is sending a spacecraft to the asteroid Bennu. They want to send art with it."

"They're going to put art on an asteroid?"

"No, they're sending submissions on a drive aboard the spacecraft. It will carry the drive into space when it collects a sample of Bennu."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure. I haven't read it all. Can I send an image of your work?"

"Ummmm..."

And so on. I still don't fully understand what is happening, other than that an image of my work is going to be placed on a drive which will travel through space to an asteroid named Bennu and Doug is really excited about it.

So here is Doug's own explanation:

I read a lot of technology news and was amazed to discover that NASA is accepting artwork for their OSIRIS -REx mission to an asteroid, back to earth orbit and then to circle the sun forever. The submissions are digital images stored on digital medium. A fascinating initiative! After getting Kathy to buy into the crazy scheme, the artwork has been submitted and is going to space forever! Kathy is representing fibre artists of the planet Earth!

Doug and I agreed that, with it's Fibonacci spiral and discovery based theme, 'She Goes but Softly, but She Goeth Sure' best fit the exploration mandate.So this image of my artwork is about to be sent on a journey through space.

She Goes but Softly, but She Goeth Sure, 24 x 24 x 1.5, Peruvian Wool and Beeswax on Birchwood

I have to thank Doug for the fact that I will soon be able to say that my artwork was sent to space and I am not only an internationally known artist, but interstellar as well. Truth really is stranger than fiction.